


The Wife of Bath's Second Tale

by mizeliza



Category: Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
Genre: Discussion of Abortion, Gen, Rhyming, and got an excellent grade on it, that's right I wrote about medieval abortion methods for a class
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-13 15:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21162041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizeliza/pseuds/mizeliza
Summary: The Wife of Bath tells her Second Tale, explaining once more why her life has been woeful and defending her choice - and that of all women - to pursue reproductive options, support other women, and offer them options, with a Tale.





	The Wife of Bath's Second Tale

**Author's Note:**

> I had the option to essentially write Canterbury Tales fanfic for a class, so I wrote a second Tale for the Wife of Bath and I thought I'd post it.
> 
> Although it is not in Middle English, I tried my best to mimic Chaucer's style with non-metered rhyming couplets.
> 
> All references to real historical figures are to the best of my knowledge correct, as are all references to medieval abortion methods. They were used with varying degrees of success, sometimes managing inducing an abortion, sometimes not succeeding at all, and too often killing the mother, however, they did exist and were attempted.

The Prologue

And so through the pilgrims who did laugh

Came the voice of the good Wife of Bath,

Who declared that it must be her turn

No more yarn but to spin a tale she yearned. 

The Reeve spoke, his face quickly now as red

As an oven which easily burns the bread.

“Good wife,” said he “Lest you again speak overmuch

On the subject of wives and sovereignty and such,

Tell but a funny story, neither short nor long,

Indeed, make of Solomon your song.”

At this the Wife again became enraged,

As if at the offering she’d been upstaged. 

“There is no way for me to tell a fabliau,

For as I say my life is one of woe.

Five times have I at the church been wed,

And taken husbands home and into my bed.

And yet no children have I ever had,

That thing that makes many women glad.

I do not know if it would be such for me,

If of living children I had three. 

Instead there are nine that have perished

With no guarantee they would be cherished.

Two came near their time and yet were blue,

With no life in their lungs or spirit too.

Six were come and gone within some weeks,

And of them I never saw their cheeks.

And there was one who I knew for some days,

In that time at her I did gaze

For some while, watching her every breath

And so I knew the moment of her death.

For each of these a midwife I did call,

Whom I trusted always above all.

She helped me with them that would not go,

The last time was not so long ago.

She gave me an herb which she had clipped

And told me of it while tea of it I sipped.

Pliny spoke thus, and the Sibyl of the Rhine

Aristophanes said on this plant to dine.

I carefully took note of what she talked,

And when I next went out to take a walk

I found the plant, it was not very hard,

And picked it and was warned to be on guard.

What I had and what she gave I put in two

And gave one part to a girl I knew

Who found herself without husband in her life.

The other part went to an older wife

Who had too many children to feed

And much less any room to breed.

And you might decry me and deny

That I had any right to this herb apply.

But I did so for love of life and God

Now listen to my Tale and thus be awed:

The Wife of Bath’s Second Tale

There was once a girl not yet near two dozen

Who found herself in trouble without a husband

And although there were many women in the town

She thought she could not go to them around

For they would tell her father what she did

And moreover what she planned and what she hid.

Her mother was no more among the living

Which was no doubt the cause of her misgivings.

So she thought and therefore so she went

To a wife in the forest that she could frequent

Without being caught and who knew of

What comes when a man a woman loves.

“Good wife” said she, “I know not what to do,

Is there something for me you could brew?”

This wife who lives still all alone

Spoke to her then with a groan:

“Oh,” said she, “You need not take a tea,

You must just wait, and hide so no one sees.

You have some time until they start to look,

And for some time you can blame the cook,

Then tell them on pilgrimage alone you go

And come here instead, even if through the snow.

Then I will help you with the child

Whether it be harsh weather or mild. 

And home again go you and nothing more,

Many children thus to the church were born.”

And so the girl followed her advice 

And although it was close more than twice

She made it to her time with no scorn.

As the wife said it was and her child was born

And as she said outside there was a storm

Which made it near impossible to keep warm.

The child was alive for only a week

And for the girl things were very bleak.

She lived for three more days and then expired;

The wife went to town and revealed all that transpired.

All the women in the town cried out

And each revealed what she could have brought about.

One had tansy and sage and another had rue,

A third had savin and pennyroyal too.

A wife of good renown had black hellebore

And soapwort growing very near her door.

Cyperus was spoken of and worm fern

Each of the women speaking now in turn

Of what they would have given to the girl 

From the lowest wife to that of the earl. 

Perhaps she would not have been in her tomb

If “Diliges proximum tuum tamquam teipsum”

They had obeyed and sought her out

In place of a mother with another route.

As the Lord says we should help one each other

Sister and sister and brother and brother.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the explanation of my choices that I included with the assignment, including citations that apply to the version of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales that appears in the 8th edition of The Norton Anthology of English Literature:
> 
> Although it may depart from the two of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales we read in class, I believe the tale that I have written and assigned to the Wife of Bath is reasonable and has both “sentence” and “solas,” both meaning and delight (General Prologue, 800). 
> 
> In her Tale written by Chaucer, the Wife of Bath chooses her own husbands, sometimes even choosing her next husband while her current husband was still alive (The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, 550-635). She makes it clear in both her Prologue and Tale that what she, and therefore all women, desire most of all is “to have sovereinetee,” to have sovereignty (The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, 1044). The Wife expresses over the course of her prologue her wishes to have control over her husbands, their land, their money, and their genitalia, which she eventually does gain with her fifth husband, who tells her “do as thee lust the terme of al thy lif,” do as it please you for the term of all your life (The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, 826). Considering her positions of the sovereignty of women over their husbands and using herself as an example, it is not implausible to consider her as an advocate for women, including using her own misfortune, which I have supplied as an explanation for why the Wife of Bath has had five husbands and frequent sexual relations but does not mention any children, to help other women keep their own sovereignty. The two women to which she provided an unnamed herb as an abortificant need it for this very reason, as one is a young unmarried woman seeking to avoid scandal and chastisement and the other is an older woman who has enough children that she cannot afford to have another.
> 
> Considering “sentance,” meaning, the Tale I have written contains instructions and information about methods of abortion in the Middle Ages as well as a lesson from the Bible. The Wife of Bath quotes Mark 12:31, giving the Latin phrase “Diliges proximum tuum tamquam teipsum,” which is well known in translation as “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It also considers women as a community, which the girl in the Tale is cut off from because of her mother’s death. In regards to “solas,” delight, although as the Wife of Bath herself says that it is full of woe, there is an almost morbid fascination with women’s bodies and with the mystery of pregnancy throughout literature - consider works from the conception of Christ in the Bible to the film Rosemary’s Baby - and yet it is also seen as nearly taboo, with many depictions removing women from the narrative or only hinting at pregnancy. Abortion is certainly a taboo subject, even today. So though it does not delight in the conventional sense, the subjects of the Tale I have written are meant to captivate and provoke the audience in a way that would leave them thinking about it afterward.


End file.
